New Caribbean specialist program launching in June
ANN RUPPENSTEIN
The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association will be rolling out its Certified Caribbean Travel Advisor Expert program this June. The goal of the program, which was first announced during Caribbean Travel Marketplace last fall, is to allow advisors to know – and better sell – the region as a whole and to understand the diversity of the Caribbean product.
“The travel advisor community is continuing to grow and become even stronger. It’s very important to our strategy,” said CHTA president Nicola Madden-Greig at the recent Caribbean Travel Marketplace held in Barbados this month. “We’re taking the step at CHTA to really expand our reach and involvement… We want to ensure that the worldwide travel advisor community understands the diversity, so when we say the Caribbean is not one place, we have so many destinations, and a diversity of experiences that you can enjoy. So, that will be launching in June and that’s a really exciting aspect of what we are doing.”
Notably, according to data from ForwardKeys, Canadian travel to the Caribbean is being driven by retail travel agencies.
“Canadian retail travel agents have done extremely well in generating business for the Caribbean,” noted Olivier Ponti, Vice President – Insights at Forward Keys, showing that the distribution channel grew 123% from January to mid April this year versus 2019 levels.
Club Med, Merit Travel, Sandals Resorts and Royal Caribbean International bookings are some of the best performing companies for arrivals from Canada to the Caribbean.
In conversation with Travel Courier, Madden-Greig noted that travel advisors have always been valued participants in the Caribbean tourism industry.
“Our destinations and hotel members rely heavily on these knowledgeable partners to represent us in the consumer market space,” she said. “The active engagement and participation of travel advisors is essential to educating travellers about our destinations and keeping them informed about important, timely updates.”
Madden-Greig shared that the pandemic highlighted the importance of the travel trade.
“Travel advisors have, and will continue to have, a significant role to play in supporting Caribbean tourism, both for suppliers and travellers, who are increasingly seeking out their knowledge and expertise to help them design their travel plans,” she said.
During a state of the industry address as part of the conference, she also shared that tourism in the Caribbean is back to pre-pandemic levels. However, she pointed out that it’s not an even recovery as some destinations are growing by double digits and others are still in recovery mode.
“The Caribbean as a region is the fastest recovering region in the world as far as tourism is concerned,” she said. “We’re seeing that airlines are seeing growth in revenue and the cruise industry is having growth and these are all against 2019 figures, which was a record year for tourism.”
She noted that the strength of the North American market is balancing the weakness of the Asian market. Although fare prices for the Caribbean are higher than pre-pandemic, it isn’t a deterrent for travel. Occupancy levels are also nearing 2019 levels. Aruba, Turks and Caicos and Barbados are some of the destinations that are strong for increases from the Canadian market.
Although events were “the big casualty of the pandemic,” Ponti noted that they’re coming back strongly in 2023.
This year some 770 delegates across 50 countries were on location for Caribbean Travel Marketplace, which will be held in Jamaica in 2024.
